"The Loire is in them" | Jean-Claude Bonnaud

This book offers us, through a walk along the Loire and its tributaries, to share the happiness of forty-four women who live and work here, in these lands where the spirit of sharing remains a cardinal virtue. They tell themselves in this mirror that is the river that shapes these countries where the vine is a queen.

Between the Loire, the vine and the woman, the link is thus drawn: it's life! And it's as good as a never-ending day...

Immediate embarkation to follow, over the seasons, the course of the Loire with infinite poetry, which makes us never get tired of it, but also through the portraits of forty-four women who, near or a little further, have a link with the world of wine. Because the vine is one of the strongest identity markers in the Loire Valley.

We wanted to weave this thread, with my friends Bernadette and Stéphan, from the Asphalte studio, who were in charge of all the scenography of this book, erasing ourselves for a long time, throughout the second part, behind the faces and approaches of these women whose backgrounds, sometimes very different from each other, are exciting.

This work concludes three years of meetings with women with beating hearts who have taken possession of the Loire to immerse themselves to the tips of their nails in its temperament that makes this river with its jolts so marked a space of wide freedom. Of course I can be told, and it is true, that many others could have been included in this book. But the constraint of pagination is a firm reminder to Order. The important thing, above all, was to resonate with women of all generations, from Sancerre to the Atlantic. A resonance that sings of fights, love passion, happiness and hope.

A great breath of fresh air, in any case, which I have rejoiced and nourished throughout these three years. To be consistent with the cover of this book, I will say that they gave me wings.